By AMY ROLPH, P-I REPORTER

Published 10:00 pm, Monday, August 11, 2008

There's still a chance that disposable grocery bags could be lining wastepaper baskets in Seattle free of charge, but it would take upward of 14,000 signatures and a majority vote in an election next year.

The Washington Food Industry, a trade group representing independent grocery stores, has launched an effort to annul a newly adopted city ordinance that instated a 20-cent fee for paper and plastic grocery bags.

The group started mobilizing grocers and volunteers to areas around the city last Friday to gather signatures – they'll need to have accumulated 14,374 legitimate signatures by Aug. 28 for the petition to make it onto the ballot.

"We think taxing family grocery bills is a really bad idea," said Jan Gee, president and chief executive of the Washington Food Industry. "Food prices are so high right now, and price increases keep going up – they're really out of the control of grocers."

The ordinance, approved by all but one City Council member and signed by Mayor Greg Nickels, is supposed to reduce waste by encouraging shoppers to bring their own reusable grocery bags.

Gee said the group proposed an alternative to the council in May, when the proposal was being debated. Grocers suggested that they could offer price incentives for customers who brought reusable bags. The group thought that plan, coupled with accessible recycling facilities and a sustainable-shopping education effort, could significantly reduce the number of disposable bags requested by shoppers.

Seattle Public Utilities estimates that roughly 360 million disposable bags are used each year in Seattle – more than 70 percent of those at grocery, convenience and drug stores. City research estimates the ordinance could cut that number in half.

If enough signatures are gathered, the bag fee wouldn't be implemented unless residents approved the issue in August 2009, Gee said. The City Council could vote to put the measure on a special election ballot earlier in the year.

A Seattle-specific Web site will go live at stopthebagtax.com by Wednesday with more information about the signature-gathering effort.